Benefits Of Yoga For Kids

Haven’t you found that students, our kids, are bombarded with more and more external information and, in some cases, bad habits these days?

Video games, multiple TV’s in the home, the internet, more homework, increased organized sports and more stressed-out parents make schools and homes more tense environments than ever.

Kids are increasingly being stressed out – and so the principles we outline in Attracting Greatness – the methods for calming your mind, unleashing your true inner passion, enjoyment and skill – equally apply to their lives. 

I was happy to see a new book launched today by an 18-year veteran of bringing yoga into schools – Gail Bently Walsh – the book is called "Yoga In the Classroom".  As she outlines on her website, the book has been written as a yoga for beginners course with a specific emphasis on helping kids in school

There have been many studies lately showing the advantage of yoga for kids where even a short period of daily yoga exercises can bring out more confidence, peacefulness and reduced stress in our kids.

In fact, if you ever notice your kids all of a sudden staring off into space – they typically do this several times a day – this is their own, built-in way of practicing meditation.  Yoga exercises and yoga postures for kids are just another way to make sure they are getting enough time to relax, introspect and bring out their full potential in spite of a very fast-moving, challenging society we now live in.

Some of the benefits of yoga your kids can experience include:

• higher self-esteem
• more self-confidence
• better able to deal with social and learning pressures at school and at home
• better chance at higher grades
• happier, healthier child
• more creative and imaginitive

As anyone who tries to practice or teach yoga for kids, you will soon realize the difference from adults in the sense that you need to keep it fun, let kids explore and learn through the process – they need to be engaged to get the best results. 

We’ve been incorporating aspects of yoga and meditation in our two boys for several months now and I have to say the experience has been incredible – both in terms of how close it has brought us AND how much confidence it has given to our kids. 

I highly recommend any family, teacher or coach to explore how they can introduce aspects of yoga into their respective time with kids – the payback will be tremendous.